Financial Review: Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB) versus Impinj (NASDAQ:PI)

Impinj (NASDAQ:PI) and Photronics (NASDAQ:PLAB) are both technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, valuation, profitability, dividends and earnings.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Impinj and Photronics, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Impinj	1	3	7	0	2.55
Photronics	0	2	3	1	2.83

Impinj presently has a consensus price target of $183.30, indicating a potential upside of 5.11%. Photronics has a consensus price target of $49.33, indicating a potential upside of 80.97%. Given Photronics’ stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Photronics is more favorable than Impinj.

Profitability

This table compares Impinj and Photronics’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Impinj	-7.26%	5.23%	2.09%
Photronics	19.05%	7.45%	6.53%

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Impinj and Photronics”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Impinj	$361.08 million	14.75	-$10.85 million	($0.92)	-189.55
Photronics	$849.29 million	1.89	$136.40 million	$2.84	9.60

Photronics has higher revenue and earnings than Impinj. Impinj is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Photronics, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Risk & Volatility

Impinj has a beta of 1.92, suggesting that its stock price is 92% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Photronics has a beta of 1.35, suggesting that its stock price is 35% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

88.4% of Photronics shares are owned by institutional investors. 6.8% of Impinj shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.3% of Photronics shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

Photronics beats Impinj on 11 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Impinj

Impinj, Inc. operates a cloud connectivity platform in the Americas, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Its platform wirelessly connects items and delivers data about the connected items to business and consumer applications. The company’s platform comprises endpoint ICs, a miniature radios-on-a-chip that attaches to a host item and includes a number to identify the item. Its platform also consists of systems products that consists of reader ICs, readers, and gateways to wirelessly provide power to and communicate bidirectionally with endpoint ICs on host items, as well as to read, write, authenticate, and engage the endpoint ICs on those items; and software and algorithms that enable its partners to solve enterprise business problems, such as retail self-checkout and loss prevention. The company primarily serves retail, supply chain and logistics, automotive, aviation, banking, datacenters, food, healthcare, industrial and manufacturing, linen and uniform tracking, sports, and travel industries through original equipment and device manufacturers, tag service bureaus, systems integrators, value-added resellers, independent software vendors, and other solution partners. Impinj, Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

About Photronics

Photronics, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, engages in the manufacture and sale of photomask products and services in the United States, Taiwan, China, Korea, Europe, and internationally. It offers photomasks that are used in the manufacture of integrated circuits and flat panel displays (FPDs); and to transfer circuit patterns onto semiconductor wafers, and FDP substrates. The company offers electrical and optical components. It sells its products to semiconductor and FPD manufacturers, designers, and foundries, as well as to other high-performance electronics manufacturers through its sales personnel and customer service representatives. The company was formerly known as Photronic Labs, Inc. and changed its name to Photronics, Inc. in 1990. Photronics, Inc. was incorporated in 1969 and is based in Brookfield, Connecticut.